President Barack Obama’s Ohio fundraising is down about $200,000 from four years ago, only about
two-thirds of the amount from the same point in his last campaign, a
Dispatch analysis of data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics
shows.

Are donors just biding their time because, unlike four years ago, Obama is a sitting president
who doesn’t face any tough primaries?

Could Ohio Democrats be tapped out by a shaky economy or the $30 million-plus campaign to defeat
state Issue 2?

Or is the bloom off the rose for many Ohioans who enthusiastically helped the Democratic senator
from Illinois smash fundraising records in the last presidential election?

The Obama campaign says the $200,000 gap in Ohio doesn’t tell the full story. Four years ago,
Obama was engaged in a fight for survival in a multicandidate Democratic contest. This year, he has
the field to himself, and he is raising money not only for his own campaign but for other Democrats
as well.

“Ohioans continue to show strong backing for President Obama and his agenda, fighting to create
jobs, for a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, and to restore economic
security for the middle class,” said Obama for America spokesman Tom Reynolds.

“Across the state, we have a broad base of grass-roots supporters, which is in stark contrast to
the way other campaigns are running their operations, planning to rely on millions of dollars from
Washington lobbyists and other special interests.”

The number of contributors nationally, sparked by those who have chipped in $250 or less, has
doubled over four years ago, the campaign notes.

Data provided by the campaign show that more than 28,000 Ohioans have contributed this year.
However, those same data show that while the nation’s six largest states also are the top six in
contributors, the seventh-largest — Ohio — comes in at 13th.

Three years after Obama was elected on the promise of “hope and change,” his “job-killing
regulations and mandates have left Ohio families and job creators with less hope and a lot less
change,” DeWine said.

The Dispatch contacted Ohioans who had made contributions to Obama by this stage of the
campaign four years ago but have not donated this year to see why they have not given. The reasons
were varied, but most still expressed strong support for the president’s re-election.

On Feb. 26, 2007, then-Sen. Obama of Illinois visited the Miranova home of Columbus lawyer Larry
James and his wife, Donna, and left with $100,000 committed to his upstart campaign for
president.

“That ain’t gonna happen” again, James said last week.

It’s not because James and his wife no longer support the president. They do.

But now he is
President Obama and the logistics of getting the world’s most-powerful man to a Columbus
condo to raise money for his re-election likely rule out a return engagement, James said.

“We’re kind of the small fish,” he said. “We’ll be on a host list, but getting an incumbent
president might be out of our league.”

Even though the Obama campaign’s fundraising is lagging in Ohio, James said he expects that it
will pick up and “hold steady,” particularly after the Republican presidential nominee is
known.

James and his wife each donated $2,300, the maximum allowable, to the Obama campaign in 2007,
but have not yet contributed to the president’s re-election.

“You have to remember Ohio just finished this major Issue 2 fight,” James said. “I think most of
(the money) is going to be there (for Obama) and most of us are going to write a check, it’s just a
question of the size.”

A few 2007 donors acknowledged some disgruntlement within Democratic ranks.

“Any disappointment in the president comes from the left. I hear comments that the president is
too moderate, the president is too centrist, which I think speaks well for him in the general
election,” said Stephen C. Walter of Wapakoneta, who “maxed out” to Obama in 2007.

Former state Rep. Otto Beatty of Columbus said, “I think the president’s core supporters are
still with him. There are some people disappointed in him about isolated issues, but, overall, when
you look at the (GOP) choices, where do you go?”

While Walter still strongly supports the president, he said he is not sure if, when or how much
he’ll contribute.

“It’s definitely not a lack of enthusiasm, it’s just a lack of resources,” Walter said. “Our
recovery in Ohio is lagging somewhat, and it just makes it more difficult to have the resources for
political campaigns.”

Beatty, a Columbus lawyer who had given $250 to the Obama campaign by this time in the 2008
campaign cycle, said he had deferred donating so far to make more-urgent contributions to local
candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Many polls suggest Obama does not enjoy the zealous backing he had four years ago when he
overtook Hillary Clinton in a drawn-out nominating process and defeated GOP Sen. John McCain in the
general election.

The much-hyped “enthusiasm gap” that helped fuel large Republican gains in 2010 still appears
evident.

A Quinnipiac University poll of Ohio voters late last month found 41 percent of Republicans
proclaiming themselves more enthusiastic about voting in the 2012 election than last time, compared
with 22 percent of Democrats.

Even if fundraising is behind the last cycle, Obama’s grass-roots operation in Ohio already has
been kicked into gear for the 2012 campaign, backers said. Over the past eight months, Organizing
for America, an Obama campaign arm, held 3,500 events across the state in successful efforts to
gather signatures for referendums challenging Senate Bill 5 and House Bill 194, GOP-passed laws to
limit collective bargaining and voter access to polls, respectively.

“They really got an opportunity to test drive their operation,” said Timothy M. Burke, chairman
of the Hamilton County Democratic Party.

Organizing for America’s 2011 ground game will morph into the Obama campaign, with field offices
planned in all 88 counties. Jessica Kershaw, Obama’s Ohio campaign spokeswoman, said the first
field office opened last week in Chillicothe, a presidential bellwether city from which
The Dispatch chronicled the 2008 campaign in a monthly series of stories.